~ The Base
In the morning, after eating a meagre breakfast of bread and dried meat, the Squad buckled themselves into their harnesses and set off reluctantly into the forest again. The morning turned out to be surprisingly peaceful; only one casualty, and not someone they knew very well. Titans were few and in between, and strips of dusty sunlight pierced the gloom of the forest. Eren and Levi chatted as they swung from tree to tree, and the squad was full of hopeful smiles. Today they should reach their final destination. Two full days in 3DMG was the limit for most people, but their peaceful day had soothed their raw nerves.
The final base was only an hour or two away when they stopped for a lunch break, perching on a wide tree branch to snack on the dried fruit and stale bread they'd packed.
Eren sat next to Levi and put his arm around the shorter man.
"Hey cutie...you okay?" he nuzzled Levi's face, kissing him quickly on the tip of his nose. The raven haired man blushed and looked away, a tiny smile appearing at the corners of his mouth.
"Well, I'm not dead." Levi replied, this time smiling properly at Eren. The brunette grinned and hugged him, whispering a happy 'I love you' into his ear. It was now Levi's turn to snuggle into Eren, a content smile on his face.
"Ditto." He said.
After another fifteen minutes of lounging on the branch, they set off again, energised and laughing happily...even Levi. His squad had never seen him smile before, let alone release a full-throated laugh; it was a cheerful chuckle which made everyone smile even more.
Suddenly, as Levi swung round the trunk of a particularly big tree, a flash of movement caught his eye.
"Suspected Titan approaching!" he shouted frantically, but being on the other side of the massive expanse of wood, his squad couldn't understand his muffled warning. But as he swung round the other side, it was already too late.
"Abnormal!" Petra shrieked, dodging the waving limbs and grabbing fingers of the titan. "It can climb!" Eren just managed to avoid the flying fist coming towards him, seemingly out of nowhere.
"And jump!" he screamed, gas hissing out of the metal cylinder as he dodged the titan's grip again. Olou let out a strangled cry as the abnormal grabbed his grappling hook, but was cut off as he disappeared into the titan's fist in a spurt of ruby.
"Spread out!" screamed Levi, his voice breaking, and the squad scattered like a flock of panicked birds. For a moment, peace reigned. But chaos soon won. Eld was snatched out of the air, yelling until he vanished down the titan's throat. Tears flooded down Eren's face as he flew through the air, clouding his vision and making everything surreally nightmarish. Petra sobbed loudly twenty metres away, and Gunther swung next to Levi who was wearing an indescribable look of wretchedness on his face. The titan still pursued them, hell burning in its demonic eyes as it lunged through the treetops after them.
Abruptly, it stopped. Bowed its legs. And jumped. It was a massive leap, suicidal from this far above, but its hunger for human blood took over the little reason it possessed. Its hand flew towards Eren, unstoppable, almost there...Eren tried to dodge, screaming in undiluted terror...
"Eren!!" Levi's scream tore through the air, even louder than the boy's, but he was too far away to do anything but watch...
The titan's palm connected to Eren's body, slamming him towards the ground, but not getting a hold on him.
The small body tumbled down like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Eren..." Levi whispered. "save...you."
And he dived after him.